This explosion killed 1 and destroyed 10 town houses in New Jersey

A gas line damaged by a contractor exploded "like a bomb" while utility crews worked to repair it Tuesday at the complex, injuring at least seven people and killing one. (Josh Forst/AP)

A day after a gas leak and subsequent explosion devastated a suburban town house development, killing one woman and injuring seven workers, investigators shifted their focus Wednesday to pinpointing the cause, identifying the victim and securing the area so displaced residents could return.

At least 55 units in the complex in a Trenton suburb were damaged in the Tuesday afternoon blast, police said, including about 10 that were destroyed. One neighbor said it was like a bomb had gone off.

Late in the day, after authorities thought the blast had not caused any fatalities, the body of a woman was discovered on a car near the site of the explosion. Officials are awaiting an autopsy for a positive ID and cause of death, said Lt. Ron Lunetta. No one else was believed to be missing, he said.

It was not clear if the woman who was killed was inside or outside a residence when the explosion occurred.

Ewing police stayed at the site overnight to secure the area, but darkness and the large amount of debris hampered their ability to investigate.

Authorities said a majority of the displaced residents would not be able to go home until Wednesday morning at the earliest. Some were being sheltered at a fire house, while others were staying with family and friends.

Officials planned a news conference for Wednesday morning at Ewing Town Hall to provide updates.

The events leading to the explosion began with a contractor working to replace electric service to the house that later blew up, officials from the utility PSE&G said. Around noon, the utility got a call that the contractor had damaged a gas line.

Advertisement

Crews were repairing the line about an hour later when, PSE&G spokeswoman Lindsey Puliti said, “there was an ignition.”

The force from the explosion buckled windows in an apartment complex nearby, said resident Marsha Brown, and pictures fell from her walls.

“It felt like a bomb,” she said.

She ran to the town house complex, saw a home engulfed in flames and two utility workers on the lawn with injuries that apparently included broken bones. She said she saw another worker on a sidewalk crying, being held by a woman.

At least one home was reduced to a blackened pile of rubble, and others had damage, including windows that were blown out. Debris was widely scattered, with insulation hanging in some tree branches.

“My body was shaking. I like to say I am calm, but I was shaking,” said Brown, who had a day off from her job as an infant hearing screener at a hospital. “You could feel the flames, everything.”

A resident of the complex, Bryan Gentry, drove home minutes after he heard an explosion and as he got closer, saw a black smoke cloud. The fire was intensely hot, he said, and he saw one person walking away from the fire who appeared to be stunned.

“It was just unreal,” he said.

The seven people injured were all utility workers, authorities said. Just three of those victims, all close to the blast, had to be hospitalized and none of those injuries was considered life-threatening, said Dr. Louis D'Amelio, trauma chief at Capital Regional Medical Center in Trenton. They included concussions, broken bones and minor shrapnel wounds, he said.

Normally during that time of day, most people in the neighborhood are at work and their children are at school, Gentry said.

Though the damage to the pipeline caused a gas leak that could lead to an explosion, the pipeline itself did not explode, a spokesman for the utility said.

NEW YORK (AP) — Viewers said farewell to Amy Poehler and the gang of Pawnee, Indiana, bureaucrats on NBC's "Parks and Recreation," in a finale that made more of a dent online than on television. Full Story